Advertising & Effects on Children

Richard Campbell - Author, Media and Culture

Serious study of the media doesn't really get started until studies called The Paine Studies in the 1920s that were looking at the effects of movies on immigrants and especially young children. Most of these were motivated by adults who thought that a new medium like the movies was corrupting youth. And so they actually set up a bunch of studies that gave them what they wanted.

Liz Perle - Editor-in-Chief, Common Sense Media

Kids become collateral damage. One of the classic examples of how kids become collateral damage in the ad world was the famous Budweiser frogs, which studies showed an unbelievable amount of kids as young as 2 could recognize.  Talk about branding at an early age.  Now, I don't think the ad agency sat around and said, "Oh, frogs are cute, we can start Budweiser drinkers in the cradle". I really don't think they meant to do that.  But they're cute, and they're funny, and what do kids like?  Things that are cute and funny.  Especially kids that are animal lovers, and I have yet to meet a child who isn't.  So you take that combination, you pour alcohol into it, and then you distribute it widely across the country.  What happens?  You get a generation of kids who grew up with the Budweiser frogs.  Does this kill them?  No.  But do studies show that they pick up Budweiser at earlier ages?  Absolutely. 

Jeff Goodby - Co-Chairman, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

I think there's a line between two different kinds of things that disturb groups like this.  One is children's advertising that advertises toys and it's directed at children on purpose because it wants to sell a toy to the child, or a service or some kind of food.  And I think that kind of advertising, because it runs at certain hours when kids do see it and it is purportedly for them, really should be watched carefully because children are extremely impressionable.  You know, they're… you can make impressions on them that are very indelible.  I think that when it comes to the kind of things that we do, we don't really do children's advertising like that, but we do things like, for instance, the Budweiser lizards that people have said to me appeal to children and make them want to drink beer.  I think that, again, you have to be careful about that because I think that the lizards are indeed appealing to everybody.  The research that we have shows that younger people do like, people that are not of drinking age do like to watch the lizards and they do get the jokes and so on.  Those jokes are a little bit sophisticated for kids under 15, but they do get the jokes.  They do like to watch a lizard talk.  Any human likes to watch a lizard talk, that's one of the reasons why we do that. 

Liz Perle

So, being an optimist in life, I'd like to think they aren't targeting kids, but let's be very clear.  They know that kids are watching this because they read the same studies we do, and it's not right. There are all sorts of ways that ads target kids inappropriately and still meet the letter of the law.

Jeff Goodby

But I think what happens is you have to be careful about making a connection between that and wanting to drink beer.  Just because you find the lizards interesting and funny does not mean you want to go out and drink the beer.  In the research that we've done, we've talked to children and found it does not translate into making you want to drink a beer. It's kind of like watching, what's the name of that beer, Duff beer on "The Simpsons."  Does that make children -- and obviously it's a funny thing to children -- does that make them want to drink beer?  I would submit that it doesn't necessarily make them want to drink beer.  You know, there might be imagery on "The Simpsons" that makes them want to drink beer, I'm not sure about that, but I don't think that Duff beer and the jokes they make about Duff beer, and the jokes that they make about Homer drinking Duff beer make kids want to drink beer. So I think you have to be careful of the distinctions there.  I don't think there's any real hard and fast quantitative research that says that the lizards made children want to drink beer.  Now, there is research, I imagine, that, and I think we've got some ourselves, that says kids like to watch the lizards.  It's two different things.